An Unexpected Oral History/Folklore Performance
at the Arizona History Museum

Jay Caldwell
3 March 2009

Last Saturday, I went with my mother and my wife down to the Arizona History Museum at 949 E. 2nd St., just west of campus, for the first lecture in the Arizona Historical Society’s Spring Brunch Series, this year toggled to the theme, “100 Years of Headlines 1909-2009.” This particular talk was entitled, Aimee Semple McPherson and her “Resurrection” in Douglas, Arizona. The teaser was the following:

Shortly after midnight on June 23, 1926, a slaughter house custodian heard a call for help. It was none other than the famous evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, who had been missing for some time. The next day, the Arizona Daily Star proclaimed: “Resurrected From ‘Dead’ Aimee Safe.” The press flooded into Douglas. Charles Barfoot discusses how the controversy over her purported abduction forever changed McPherson and clouded her reputation.

There are usually about a dozen of us scattered around six long tables lined up, two rows of three with four uncomfortable folding chairs at each table, in the museum’s conference/board room, just down past Dr. George Hands’ 19th century medical collection and left at the big old Studebaker. Mostly, the audience is comprised of silver-haired history buffs, one of whom, a lady who always has her hair in a tight bun, is accompanied by a companion dog, a huge, rescued greyhound who sleeps placidly in the back of the room. There’s a sort of breakfast catered by Rincon Market, inevitably including tiny croissants, some limp fresh fruit, runny scrambled eggs, floppy bacon and greasy sausage, and lukewarm coffee delivered in boxes, along with ambient temperature orange juice. The talk starts not very promptly at 10.

Dr. Charles Barfoot, an “Associate Faculty” member up at ASU, finally takes the floor. He’s a preacher man, as was his father, he tells us. From amazon.com, which lists his recently published book, you can discern that he “received his theological education at Princeton Theological Seminary, Harvard Divinity School and the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley.” He’s a big guy, in voice and in body. He also knows waaaay too much about Aimee Semple McPherson. He knows so much, that he really doesn’t know how little we do. First, he cruises into some anecdotes about Hollywood celebrities who knew Aimee (he always calls her Aimee). We’re getting nowhere near Douglas. Then, from nowhere, he throws out, “I know you all know about . . .” and says something about a hate crime of the 20s that took place somewhere between Sierra Vista and Bisbee. It didn’t seem to have much to do with Ms. McPherson, so I didn’t press the point. But we were in the vicinity of Douglas, at last.

About this time he stops to tell us about his book and (now I’m getting to the point), how proud he is that he’s her first biographer to include oral histories. He stresses how very important they are. I’m on board with that, but, as I whisper to my wife, aren’t they dangerous, too? I write down on a piece of paper: confabulation, transposition, elision, addition.

This business with Aimee is that at the height of her evangelical popularity, in 1926, she disappears, last seen in the surf off Venice Beach. A few weeks later, and after her funeral, she shows up at the border crossing between Agua Prieta and Douglas. She claims to have been abducted, blindfolded, and held captive for ransom in a shack somewhere south of the border. By dint of sheer pluck, she claims, she escaped and trekked across the Sonoran Desert (in June, mind you) to safety. Trouble is, she looked like maybe she just stepped out of her car, so no one believed her, and it seems, although this is all pretty cloudy, she seems actually to have disappeared north to Carmel where she underwent an abortion, and then figured the Douglas business would look pretty newsworthy and further enhance her career, and that the hicks down there wouldn’t ask too many sharp questions.

But the importance of this isn’t Ms. McPherson, it’s Barfoot. He’s still talking about, and dropping the names of, his informants with terrific glee. They are all wonderful people, he emotes. Finally, he winds down. There’s nothing more that he can think of to say. He opens the talk for questions. After a few minor ones, an old guy at the front table leans forward and Barfoot seems to have been expecting this. Or maybe not.

He says his name is Armando. He’s from Douglas. He says he’s a Mexican and his accent would bear this out. He wants Barfoot to say something about the long white flowing robes Aimee Semple McPherson wore, and her huge, dangling, gold and wood crucifixes. But before Barfoot has a chance Armando has launched into his own oral history. He knew Aimee. He remembers those robes, he remembers going with Aimee, and his grandmother into some sort of an apartment behind the church where Aimee preached. (Barfoot was never real clear on the dates and how long Aimee remained in Douglas.) But this is startling. This guy actually remembers Aimee Semple McPherson! We are all astonished. So is Barfoot. Barfoot turns away and answers another question. Then Armando is all over him again. Now, he says he’s 82 and he’s beginning to misremember a few things, but this one memory he’s got down. Then he adds that his grandmother, who was also a preacher, wore long white, flowing robes and huge, dangling, gold and wood crucifixes.

[I lean over to my wife. “2009 minus 82. Do the math. He was born in 1927. Or maybe 1926.” The Douglas episode was June, 1926. Hello, Barfoot, you’ve got a problem here.]

But now Armando is rolling. “I’ve just published a 600-page book about my family. It tells the story of sixty people in my family. My cousin was the President of Mexico. It’s got 231 pictures.” Armando is grinning, and getting worked up. He remembers that some researcher came down to talk with him once and he lent him some family photos and he’s never heard back from the guy and he wonders if maybe that would have been Barfoot. Barfoot denies his complicity and looks like he really wants to leave, but now Armando is stubbing his cane into the floor going on and on about his family and Aimee. His aunt was the Governor of Sonora. His book tells it all. My mother and my wife and I get up, leaving Barfoot to extricate himself from this mess. We hear him promise that he’ll give Armando a copy of his book, if Armando will give him a copy of his.

I hadn’t thought much more about this until I read the chapter by Americo Paredes in which he warns ethnographers about the inherent danger in relying on informants. I would guess that informants include old folks giving oral histories. Here you have it in a nutshell. It was clear that what Armando remembered about Aimee Semple McPherson was what his preacher grandmother had told him and others when he got old enough to remember. I have no idea what Aimee wore—although Barfoot suggests that she was pretty dolled up when she preached—but it was Armando’s grandmother who wore the flowing robes and crucifixes. Clearly Barfoot was unaware of Parades’ dictum: “The ethnographer should always be aware of the informant as a potential performer of folklore” (107). Or in this case, just plain Performer.

It does make you wonder if it’s even possible to do ethnography in a contemporary community. Both Armando and Barfoot thought they were getting away with it, and it would seem, in the end, neither did.